The economics are different. I'm assuming you mean the guys writing the programs that run trading platforms. Those guys are super specialists and for their employers a small boost in performance means a huge boost in revenue for the day. Also from some first hand account I've read from here and on Reddit the job is very demanding. You can get called in at any time to write something that needs to be done by the next morning. It comes with its perks of pay but the trade off is freedom.
This gave me an interesting thought. You mention that those trading jobs are supposed to be very demanding, implicitly citing this as a reason for their higher salaries. Well, any time a subjective factor like that affects a salary, it is based purely on people's perception of the job. It seems to me that the typical perception of startup work is equally demanding. It's odd that instead of resulting in higher salaries, the benefit is diverted to the (statistically poor) hope of a big IPO or acquisition. This is ironic since the trading firms paying $250k+ to programmers are all about maximizing profits in an environment that could be even more volatile and risky than the startup world. It makes me wonder who has the smarter approach to risk...
